Lager-beer, as a product of American industry, although introduced, as has been intimated, about the year 1842, did not gain popular favor until the decade following its introduction; nevertheless, all authorities agree that it tended even at that time to impart a strong impetus to brewing. As to the exact date of its introduction, and the person by whom it was first introduced, there still exists so much uncertainty that no writer on the subject has ventured to go beyond mere hypothetical assertions. Did we not live in an enlightened age, the mystery in which the origin of American lager-beer is shrouded might add another legend to the many mythical tales which, variously colored by different nations, are current concerning the father of real beer. We say _real_ beer, for, although the use of a wine-like beverage, extracted from barley, extends far into the prehistoric ages, _real_ beer (that is, the drink known to us by that name) is of more recent origin; yet, as to place and date of the latter, nothing definite can be known. While some attribute the invention of hopped malt beer to Jan Primus (John I), a scion of the stock of Burgundy princes, who lived about the year 1251, others ascribe it to Jean Sans Peur (1371-1419), otherwise known as Ganbrivius. A corruption of either name may plausibly be shown to have resulted in the present name of the King of Beer, viz., Gambrinus, whom we are accustomed to see represented in the habit of a knight of the middle ages, with the occasional addition of a crown. Popular imagination, it seems, attached so much importance to beer that in according the honor of its invention, it could not be satisfied with anything less than a king; just as the Egyptians, in remote antiquity, ascribed the invention of their barley-drink to their benevolent god Osiris, while the ancient Germans conceived of a brew-house in Walhalla, under the supervision of a presiding deity. As a bit of amusing anachronism, it may be mentioned that there is a poetical apotheosis of Gambrinus, which elevates that personage to the dignity of a heathen god, alongside of Bacchus.